A cloaked and hooded figure knelt in the newly fallen snow amid a group of leafless oaks. He had one hand on the snow and the other clutched the dagger at his side. The creature stood and threw back his hood, revealing a long orange and white nose tipped in black. His nose twitched as he tried to catch the scent of the man he hunted. The triangle ears atop his head swiveled independent of one another in the hopes of picking up a noise.Master LePrius’ breath was visible in the cold as he let out a sigh of disappointment. He had lost his prey. The man in the brown hat had eluded him.

No sooner had his shoulders slumped in defeat when he heard a female voice cry out in agony. Instantly, the werefox was sprinting across the snow. LePrius spotted a crimson patch dotting the white ground, and went quickly to it. He followed the blood trail to a tree, where it disappeared. LePrius stood at the base of the great oak, unsure of where to go next. As he stood, he noticed that the blood was starting to pool at the base of the tree. His fear and uncertainty was replaced with concern, and he made circles around the tree looking for some passage.

Suddenly, a female stumbled from within the trunk of the massive tree. LePrius caught her in his arms and cradled her head. She was nude with lines of crimson running across her pale body. Her black hair spilled across his lap. He recognized that she was a dryad. He realized that she was dying.

“Who did this?” LePrius asked. She was too weak to answer. “Was it a man wearing a brown hat?” She nodded; then she died.

LePrius had chased the man, and driven him right to the dryad. Logic shouted that the werefox should not hold himself accountable for this creature’s demise, but his heart cried out and silenced reason. The dryad was beautiful. Even as she lay there, lifeless, she was still the most beautiful thing LePrius had ever laid eyes on. Then she was gone; the tree had claimed her body one last time.

The werefox made his way back to original blood pool, and found the tracks that split off from the blood trail. He would not let the man go unpunished for his murder.

Every year LePrius makes a trip to visit the tree where the dryad died. One solitary tree, dead in the middle of a beautiful grove, sits decorated with flowers that are watered by the tears of therian.

Lady Swarmstrike heard the shuffle of her daughter’s feet as she returned from her classes at the Crimson Academy. The lady of the house was pouring over some old tomes, and spoke over her left shoulder toward the hallway.

“How was your training today?”

There was only silence. It was not the first time Swarmstrike had been ignored by her daughter; so, she simply tucked her dark curls behind her pointed ear and continued her reading. Lady Swarmstrike’s face was flawlessly smooth, which belied her nearly three hundred years of life. She had seen many battles, but her visage still seemed that of a young girl. It had taken Swarmstrike much longer to settle down and have children due to her travelling across Delphia. She had not been prepared to have sole responsibility of her daughter, but the death of her husband left her unprepared for a lot of things.

Then Swarmstrike heard a sound she was not expecting, the light and hopeless sigh of her daughter. The lady slowly turned to see the young elf leaning in the doorframe, one arm across her torso and the other dangling down with parchment clutched in her slender fingers.

Her daughter, Greyhaven raised her hand and extended the letter but kept her silver eyes lowered. “They are wrong,” she muttered as her mother pulled the note away. As Lady Swarmstrike read the words, Greyhaven put her back on the doorframe and crossed both arms in a defensive posture.

Lady Swarmstrike,

Your daughter, Greyhaven, disrupted my class discussion today when she decided to argue the role humans and dwarves played in the War of Horded Magic. It is our duty to instill the correct teachings of that part of history. Apparently, Greyhaven’s grandfather has filled her mind with stories that simply are not true. However, your daughter refused to relent and was thus sent from my class. Any further instance such as this will result in her immediate expulsion from this academy.

Warmest regards,

Professor Vonorola

With warmth that neither Greyhaven nor Swarmstrike expected, the mother uncoiled her daughter’s arms and embraced her. There were several moments of silence as the two women let years of unspoken anger and resentment at the loss of their husband and father die. The realization that they now only had one another settled over them. For too many years, Swarmstrike had buried herself in her books while Greyhaven found solace in her painting.

Finally, Greyhaven exploded into an explanation. “Vonorola said that the dwarves closed themselves up in Dundersnuff to save themselves while the rest of the world burned, but Pops told me the dwarves closed their gates only after the majority of refugees from the surrounding areas were inside; AND that most of the dwarven soldiers were dispatched out to fight evil. Pops said that we were the ones that ‘tried to hide under the supposed safety of neutrality’. Mom, they are not teaching us what really happened. Vonorola told us that most of the humans fought alongside Rainor, but I know that is isn’t right. Pops said that the humans made some of the greatest sacrifices of all time during that war.”

“I had no idea that this is what the academy is teaching now,” Swarmstrike said, shocked.

Immediately, mother and daughter made their way to the Crimson Academy. Swarmstrike, because of her father’s legacy, was not questioned in any manner as she quickly paced through the halls looking for Professor Vonorola.

She found the teacher and cornered her in the hallway. “You claim to be telling our children the truth about the past, but you vomit lies and then blame the stench on my child. You will no longer be teaching at this Academy, if I have anything to do with it. I promise you that.”

“I teach the curriculum assigned to me, nothing more,” Vonorola stated in a stoic tone. “If you have a problem, take it to Marcev.”

“I plan to,” Lady Swarmstrike answered.

“I heard my name?” Marcev, the highest ranking official in the Crimson Academy had obviously been told of Swarmstrike’s presence on the school grounds and had made his way to see her.

Swarmstrike explained about the fallacies in Vonorola’s teaching, and was surprised at the regal elf’s response.

“Your words are far more venomous than the hordes of vermin you summon forth. Be away, and know that none of your blood line will ever be Crimson Elite.”

“My family will always hold true to the core values of what it means to Crimson, long after your spires collapse and your books burned. When the races you sneer and gawk at march upon the bodies of your deceased, we will remain Crimson. When the very soil of Alhaven drinks your blood and the carrion birds blot the sun, we will remain Crimson.”

They were banished from Alhaven that very day, escorted out by two armored guards. Swarmstrike left her tome open on the table. Greyhaven did not bring her expensive paints. They had the truth, and now they had each other.